Has China beat us to 6g?

"Back to 6g for a second. Elon Musk thinks his Starlink product might be the closest to getting 6g. If that is true, it will be Elon, once again, to save us. If Elon is just blowing smoke and he is no closer to 6g than 2030, then we might have to give a tip of the hat to China. Will China be a fair trader with us on their 6g products? Are they fair traders on anything? Case closed."

Let me start this by saying there is absolutely nothing wrong with all the super technology which is packed into your current cellphone. By now, most of us (unless we still love the flip phones), have 5g technology in our phones. That was a huge jump for the industry, as it really cut the latency time down for downloading and such. But is good enough ever good enough in the world of technology? Nope. Right now, our smart folks in phone labs are working on the anticipated 6g phone. Why? The latency time will be a hundred times faster than the 5g. What does that mean? You could download 5 movies in less than one second.

Okay - forget the movie example for a minute. There are hundreds of other applications which would be good, very good, to have faster latency. Some of which are medical, and some involve national security. But not to worry - we are way ahead of the rest of the world in this critical development. Or are we? It seems that last week, China announced they have cracked the code (so to speak) and come out with a 6g prototype. If this is true, and not just Chinese smoke and mirrors, that would put them over three years ahead of us. Currently, we are racing to have 6g on the market by 2030. 

Not to be the bearer of not so good news, but there is more. China, who is our main competitor in the world of AI, seems to have fast tracked their AI development a bit faster than us. The lead (all be it small) we have had over the Chinese seems to have evaporated. Now it is an old-fashioned foot race. But all things being equal, here is the real bothersome part to me. Current intel shows the "go to market" pricing that China will have on AI technology will be 40% less than ours. If their product is as good as ours, yet 40% cheaper - that will be a killer on global sales.

Meanwhile, what is going on in the world of our AI. Kathy Hochel (governor of NY) has just put a one-year moratorium on the building of any new AI data centers. In this footrace where every week counts, to have a major state like New York put a hold on any new data centers will not help us - not one bit. And locally here, Elk River just voted down permitting on a new data center. Why? NIMBY (Not in My Back Yard). And the NIMBY bug could be spreading across the nation.

Back to 6g for a second. Elon Musk thinks his Starlink product might be the closest to getting 6g. If that is true, it will be Elon, once again, to save us. If Elon is just blowing smoke and he is no closer to 6g than 2030, then we might have to give a tip of the hat to China. Will China be a fair trader with us on their 6g products? Are they fair traders on anything? Case closed.